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4 things you need to do in the country during the holidays
No, not early. The beginning of March is the time to open the summer cottage season in order to secure a good harvest.
“Inexperienced summer residents arm themselves with pruning shears and whitewash when the snow melts and the first grass begins to turn green. And it is completely in vain: trees are injured and may even “change their minds” to bear fruit this year. Therefore, it is important to come to prune the garden before the amicable movement of juices begins. The beginning of March is the best time for that. ”
Brushes in hand
Whitewashing is important not for beauty, but to protect the trunks of young trees from spring sunburn, when it is quite warm during the day and freezes at night. Make a solution that protects against both burns and fungal infections: stir 2,5 kg of lime, 500 g of copper sulphate and 10 liters of water.
If the bark is damaged by rodents during the winter, clean the wounds with a sharp garden knife, then brush with pitch. If you don’t feel like messing around with lime in the cold, there is an easier way that will take you exactly 3 minutes per tree. Take a newspaper, wrap it around the trunk and tie it with twine. This protection is fragile, but we need it for a maximum of a month. And if the beauty of bleached trunks is important, just schedule work for May, when it is easy and pleasant to do this kind of processing.
Garden pharmacy
It is now convenient to protect plants from fungal diseases, moss and lichen. The latter can be carefully removed from tree trunks with a wire washcloth. Then treat the trunks, hollows and other damage with iron sulfate (dissolve as indicated in the instructions).
To destroy the fungus, you can prepare Bordeaux liquid. To do this, take 100 g of quicklime, quench with water and dilute to a volume of 5 liters. Dissolve 100 g of copper sulfate in water and also bring to a volume of 5 liters. A solution of vitriol is poured into the milk of lime (not vice versa). The resulting blue mixture is sprayed onto trees.
Anti-aging treatments
It is ideal to prune old fruit trees in March. Young plants do not need to be touched, since the annual branches below the cut quickly freeze and cannot tolerate the procedure. It is better to do this in a warmer time, but only before the kidneys awaken. So, it is necessary:
– remove all dry and diseased branches;
– cut out densely growing shoots, but not more than a quarter of the total;
– shorten last year’s branches by a third, cut above the bud. This stimulates the development of new shoots;
– cut off the branches that grow inward.
Pests away!
In cold weather, egg clutches of some insects, larvae, moth nodules are clearly visible. They must be removed by hand and burned.
It is important to get rid of shoots with growths, swelling or darkening of the bark, lesions. Such branches need to be cut to healthy wood and covered with pitch.